


Shoulda' Been a Bee, Girl

by aryaofoldstones



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Costume Parties & Masquerades, F/M, Halloween, Halloween Costumes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-09 22:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16458482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryaofoldstones/pseuds/aryaofoldstones
Summary: "You all just let me know what you want to be and I’ll make sure you have everything to be the best fairy-princess or pirate you’ve ever seen.” The council dispersed, thinking on their costumes. “If I make you a mask, will you wear it?” Beth asked Daryl.She wasn't sure he would respond. He probably thought this whole thing was pretty pointless. Maybe it was.“Depends.” His mouth twitched, not a smile but something like it, and made Beth’s heart beat hard in her chest. Was he teasing her? “I ain’t a fairy princess.”





	1. Standing

Beth took a deep breath to steady herself. Now that she was in front of the council, all her eager anticipation had vanished and in its place was a nervousness that overwhelmed her.

“First off, I want to thank everyone for coming today. I know you’re all real busy and I won’t take up too much of your time.”

“Is everything alright, Beth?” Carol questioned. Her brow was furrowed in concern and Beth forced a smile to reassure her despite the buzzing in her ears and the churning in her stomach.

“Yes. Thank you. The weather’s starting to turn and I was thinking it might be nice if we did something to celebrate Halloween.”

"Celebrate? Like a party?" Glenn straightened up. "With costumes?"

“I don’t know.” Rick crossed his arms, leaning back against one of the tables. “Wouldn’t it be a bit…morbid, I guess, to dress up as ghouls and goblins when the real thing is right outside our door?”

“I wasn’t planning on doing anything scary, just something fun or different to break up the days.”

“Bethy and Shawn used to spend months planning our harvest display.” Beth blinked rapidly, taking a deep breath to steady herself. The unexpected mention of Shawn made her want to sob. She could almost see him in the patch, loading the truck up with every pumpkin she pointed at. “Families would come from all over the county to see it. We sold enough pumpkins because of those two to rival any of the industrial farms.”

“What kind of party?”

“I had thought—,” she willed herself to finish, “a masquerade maybe.”

“Sounds like a good time,” Michonne said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rick turn to look at her. “Where would we get costumes?”

“Since we can’t exactly run down to Walmart to buy a costume or spend weeks making them for everyone, the kids and I could make masks for everyone. You’d be surprised what you can do with paper, markers and some glitter.”

“That’s a great idea, Beth.” Carol stepped forward, wrapping her sweater around herself. The weather really was changing and there was an autumnal chill in the air. They would have to find a way to keep the prison warm in the coming months, especially during the evenings as it winter began to creep up on them. “It’ll keep the kids busy, give them a chance to just be kids.”

“How much time would you need?” Rick had uncrossed his arms and was standing up a little straighter, less of his weight supported by the table. He seemed to have warmed to the idea, either because of her Daddy’s assurances or Michonne’s interest.

“A week or two?”

“Week.” To Beth’s surprise, it was Daryl that responded. He had one leg pulled up to his chest, arm resting on his knee, gnawing on his thumbnail. She had thought out of everyone he would be the one to dismiss her idea outright. “’Nough time to get some reinforcements done with all the kids distracted.”

“Alright,” Rick conceded, nodding. “If everyone approves, we’re having a Halloween party in a week.” There was a murmur of agreement. Michonne gave an encouraging hoot, prompting a smile from Beth. “But we can’t squeeze in an extra run for supplies. There’s a crew going out six days from now. Anything you need will have to wait for the day before the party. Understood?”

“Understood. Thank you.” Beth smiled, eyes still watery. She addressed the whole council, “Thank all of you. I’m going to start working on masks with the kids right away. You all just let me know what you want to be and I’ll make sure you have everything to be the best fairy-princess or pirate you’ve ever seen.”

Beth turned to leave, mind racing with everything that would need to be done in the next week, when Michonne said her name. She had gotten up from her place at the table and was next to Beth now.

“You think you could scrounge up a costume for a bunny?” Michonne was smiling, but Beth knew she wasn’t teasing. It worked in a way, swift and nervous and sweet.

“Yes, definitely.” Michonne squeezed her hand and thanked her. As she walked away, Beth noticed that Rick was again watching Michonne. Rick followed her out the door and then it was just her and Daryl left in the room. He was looking at her intently, eyes narrowed. She considered turning back around and getting to work as she had originally intended, but something in her made her close the distance between them. “Do you know who you want to be?”

Daryl just looked at her. Beth felt heat come to her cheeks. She had thought, maybe, his acquiescence had meant he was going to participate, give himself a chance to relax with everyone else. Let his guard down. Finally he said,

“Nah.” Daryl’s eyes fell away from her and he went back to biting his nail, posture gone rigid. Beth took a step back, so she wasn’t crowding him. With the extra space the tension left his shoulders and she gathered up all her courage to try again despite herself.

“If I make you a mask, will you wear it?” She wasn't sure he would respond. He probably thought this whole thing was pretty pointless. Maybe it was.

“Depends.” His mouth twitched, not a smile but something like it, and made Beth’s heart beat hard in her chest. Was he teasing her? “I ain’t a fairy princess.”

Beth surprised both of them by giggling. Daryl’s mouth twitched again.

“You just wait, I’m gonna pick the perfect costume for you. You’ll be on your knees thanking me.”

“Yeah,” he said, slinging his crossbow over his shoulder, “we’ll see.”

* * *

  
While most of the kids worked on their bellies on the library floor, Beth had taken over one of the tables so she could keep an eye on them while she worked. Molly sat at the table with her, carefully tracing the one of the templates Beth had made for the kids to use to make their masks.

She had cut out the basic shape of a cat, a superhero mask, a butterfly, things like that. They were all working intently, cutting and coloring, gluing on paper stars and whiskers. Every few minutes the sound of one of them riffling through the pencil cases that held their art supplies punctuated the quiet with a tumbling sound.

“That’s very pretty, Molly.” She had drawn a few of bright pink flowers on a sheet of blush colored construction paper before she started tracing her wobbly edged mask.

“Thank you, Miss Beth,” Molly said, beaming.

As she worked, Beth found herself wracking her brain for a costume idea that would suit Daryl. She had been working her way down the list of requests her family had given her. Her Daddy was going to be a scarecrow and Rick and Carl wanted to be Superman and the Flash. Maggie and Glenn had decided on a couple’s costume, Maggie as a rattlesnake and Glenn as a mouse. None of those would work for Daryl, and she wanted something for him that no one else in their family had.

She’s settled on some kind of animal costume for him. He wasn’t the type to dress up as a character from a movie, even if he did have a ruggedly handsome quality to him, and the likelihood that their taste in movies overlapped enough for him to recognize a costume like that was pretty low.

His attitude towards the idea of a fairy princess costume made her nix anything that leaned too far into the supernatural and she didn’t think he’d take too kindly to being compared to a bug, even if she was dressing up like one herself. Maybe especially because she was dressing up like one herself. She didn’t want him to think she was trying to force him into a couple’s costume with her. Because she wasn’t.

She thought of Daryl’s personality, the aura that brought with him into every room he entered. Beth remembered the way his eyes had cut into her, sending a pleased shiver down her spine. He was a man and yet, something like a wolf. She set the scissors down for a moment and opened closed her hand a few times, working out the cramping sensation.

He wasn’t wild though, and though he was often alone, he wasn’t a loner. That was enough for her to dismiss that idea outright. He was more like a great big tomcat. Loyal, but fierce, something that slept at your side and dropped dead mice at your feet. Beth laughed, picturing Daryl holding Glenn by the scruff of his neck.

While his nature and bearing had a feline quality to it, his stature was another matter entirely. Beth couldn’t imagine a kitten being as exquisitely muscled as Daryl, even as the train of thought made her blush. She put the thought of Daryl, and his muscles, away for the time being and resolved to continue brainstorming until she found Daryl’s perfect match.

Beth went back to her mask, cutting out the shape in red construction paper. Beth wished they had the time and materials to make nicer masks. What she wouldn’t give for a few extra days and some red silk. She was grateful for what they had though. This time last year they had been on the road, fighting every day for survival.

She was lucky to have the time and energy to want for anything that wasn’t a burnt squirrel or a sip of water. And besides, it would be a waste to sacrifice perfectly good fabric for something frivolous like this.

Having the base of her mask done, Beth went to the bins of clothing on the other side of the library under the windows. She pulled the lid off the closest one and started pulling out handfuls of clothing, sorting them first by color and then matching them to costumes. She set aside a striped beige dress that would be perfect for Maggie’s rattlesnake costume and a soft white turtleneck made of cashmere for Michonne.

Towards the bottom of the third bin was a red eyelet sundress, perfect for Beth’s ladybug, though the fabric was a little sun-bleached and there was a rip in the bustline. The color couldn’t be helped but a few black construction paper dots or a daisy would cover the damage on the bodice.

Beth touched the embroidered cotton of the skirt with a kind of reverence. Back at the farm, she had dozens of dresses like this that her Mama had bought her. Even after the turn, she used to wear them sometimes when she was missing her Mama especially bad. Beth hadn’t worn a dress since the farm burned.

Swallowing against the dryness in her throat, Beth continued putting together costumes for other people in the prison. A bright yellow shirt for a man named Sam who wanted to be a canary, a long black dress for Jessica’s witch costume and so on. It felt peculiar to be thinking of all these people by their first names when just the day before they had been strangers under the same roof. It reminded Beth of when Rick and Daryl and all their people had become part of her family as much as Maggie and Daddy. It made her world feel bigger.

She grabbed a few shirts of different colors that were beyond repair. Some had rips in them the size of softballs, while others were speckled with hundreds of holes no more than a quarter inch wide. At first Beth had hoped to use the damaged shirts to decorate their masks, but she reasoned that anything nice enough for a mask could be repaired and worn again.

The shirts Beth had chosen to cut up though had more fabric missing than they had left. Beth cut them open along one of the side seams so they laid flat against the ground and started cutting them into thin strips to use as ribbons for everyone to fasten the masks on.

She made a pile of red shirt strips, sorting out any that were too torn or moth-bitten to hold together and grabbed two good ones for her own mask. When she was done she had ribbons in every color of the rainbow, black, white and brown. The brown strips almost looked like fur all piled up like that. Her brow furrowed. Something about the look of rich brown fur reminded her of Daryl.

* * *

  
Beth pulled down five boxes of brownie mix from the top shelf in the cupboard. Arms wrapped around her bounty, Beth carefully stepped back down from the step stool. She set down the boxes and grabbed two bottles of vegetable oil and a measuring cup. She already had a pitcher of water on the counter, but there was nothing she could do about the egg the box’s recipe called for.

Her Mama had told her once that boxed mixes didn’t really need an egg, they just put it on the box to make people feel like they were really baking. She remembered thinking that was silly, and sweet like something you might do for a child. Beth didn’t know if that was really true or if it was just one of those urban legends hat got passed between people, but she hoped it was because while Rick and her Daddy were growing vegetables in the garden and tending pigs, the prison didn’t have a hen-house like the farm.

Beth tore the tops off of the boxes and pulled out the transparent bags filled with the pale brown dry ingredients including, God willing, some kind of powdered egg to hold it all together. She cut a slit in each other bags and emptied them into a massive silver bowl they normally used to prepare soup and chili for dinner. Beth did a little mental math to determine how much oil and water she would need for the five boxes. Making such a big batch reminded Beth of baking for church functions with her Mama.

Her Daddy would always work close to the house when they baked, so he could beat Maggie and Shawn into the kitchen to be their “taster”, to make sure they weren’t poisoning anyone he used to tease. Being in the kitchen made her feel close to her Mama again. It was a feeling Beth had missed. Carol generally handled the prison’s meals largely on her own, but Beth thought it wouldn’t hurt to start offering to help her more often.

A burst of gratitude overwhelmed her as she entered the baking temperature into the control pad on the ovens. Gratitude for the brownie mix, for the ovens, for the prison, for her Daddy for making the council listen to her idea and for Rick and Daryl for humoring her. It felt good to be putting a little good into the world, infusing a bit of joy into their lives. Only God knew how much time they had here, in the prison or on Earth. She tried not to let that get to her. That was the way it had always been, even before the world had ended. Nothing was ever certain.

The first oven beeped and the LED screen changed from ‘preH’ to reading ‘350F’. She split the brownie batter between the two square pans and the assortment of pots serving as makeshift baking tins. Beth had always loved watching her Mama pour cake batter into pans in ribbons, there was something mesmerizing about it, like ripples in a pool.

She had scrounged up every pot and pan in the kitchen to use as baking dishes, but she still wasn’t sure if there would be enough for everyone. The population of the prison had grown considerably since the people from Woodbury had joined them. Though generally her family and the Woodbury people kept to themselves, each group still somewhat wary of the other, nearly everyone in the prison, her family and Woodbury people alike, had approached her in the recent days to talk about the masquerade.

Most of them had requests for costumes, but some of them had thanked her for spearheading the effort and a few even had offered to help with the preparations. She had delegated a few tasks to them, but mostly she preferred to work on things herself. She looked back into the cupboard, and grabbed two more boxes of brownie mix.

It felt good to be doing something on her own. It seemed ever since they had settled into the prison, there was always someone hovering over her as she went through her day, as though she couldn’t be trusted to handle things herself. That had created a bit of extra stress for Beth, as she worked day and night to make sure everything was perfect for the party.

Her Mama had always baked everything fresh day of, but Beth just wouldn’t have time to be baking everything right before the masquerade started. She put the pans into the ovens, setting a timer. And besides, she hoped to find a cookie cutter to press shapes out of the flat brownie on their run tomorrow and that would help get rid of any hard outer edge they might develop.

That reminded her of the difficult conversation she would need to have with her Daddy that afternoon. She was determined to go on the run tomorrow. Beth hadn’t left the prison gates for more than a few minutes since they had found it months ago and it was becoming a little ridiculous. Beth knew Rick wouldn’t raise a fuss as long as her Daddy gave his blessing. The run was just going to be to a suburb about thirty minutes away. The crew had been there before and cleared some of the stores and homes in the center of town, but hadn’t looted any of it in order to make it back from that run before dark.

The oven beeped and Beth slipped and oven mitt on to each hand to pull the pans out in twos. She pulled the mitts off, letting the brownies cool while she pulled down two plates and got a knife and fork for each. It couldn’t hurt to gild the lily.

When Beth stepped outside with a plated square of brownie in each hand, she was surprised to see Daryl at work in the garden with her Daddy instead of Rick. Seeing Daryl reminded her of the way her mind had wandered when she had thought of Daryl the other day. She hadn’t technically been avoiding him, all the work getting things ready for the party had kept her busy. And she had sort of been avoiding him. She took a moment to recompose herself, and plastered on a smile, squinting as she stepped into the sun.

“Hi, Daddy.” Beth continued, slightly more hushed, “Hi, Daryl.”

He grunted in response, and while that might have been rude coming from most people, from Daryl that was practically a gushing greeting.

“Bethy, are those brownies?” He stabbed his shovel into the ground and reached out to grab both plates. Beth laughed and pulled Daryl’s brownie out of his reach.

“Don’t be a glutton, Daddy.”

“Oh, let an old man be. Besides, Daryl doesn’t mind, does he?”

“That’s because Daryl’s nice.” His head shot up at that and he gave Beth the same unreadable look he had given her after the council meeting she had called. She handed Daryl his plate and when their fingers brushed each other, he pulled the plate close to his chest like her touch had burned. “Be honest. You can tell me if it’s awful.”

Her Daddy was too busy shoveling the brownie in his mouth to respond, but Daryl looked thoughtful as he took a careful bite, analyzing the flavor.

“’S good.” Beth ducked her head, smiling.

“Thank you. It’s just boxed, though. My Mama always baked from scratch.” Daryl shrugged, knife and fork tucked between his index and middle finger while he ate with his hands.

“My Mama never made it past buying the damn boxes.” He looked from her to Hershel after he cursed, like one of them were going to scold him. Beth wasn’t sure how to respond so she just smiled and turned to her Daddy.

“Daddy?”

“Doodlebug?” Beth wrinkled her nose. She wasn’t embarrassed of the nickname, but with Daryl there…it made her seem juvenile. She took a deep breath and decided to cut straight to the point.

“There’s a run tomorrow and I’m going on it. I want to find things for the party and it’s time I started going on runs anyway.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not right that Maggie and Michonne and Daryl and even people younger than me from Woodbury are risking their lives all the time on these runs while I’m kept under lock and key here in the prison like a princess in a tower.”

“I agree.”

“And I don’t w—wait. What?” Her Daddy smiled, handing his empty plate back to her. He grabbed his shovel and finished digging.

“I said, yes. I don’t like it just like I don’t like your sister going on those runs, but it’s a fact of our life now. We risk our lives everyday, every second. You’re grown enough to decide these things for yourself. Have been for a long while.”

“Oh, Daddy.” She hugged him. “I promise I’ll be safe.”

“I know you will.” He rested his chin on her head. “Daryl’s going to be your personal bodyguard. Isn’t that right, son?”

“Yes.” Daryl nodded, looking at her from under his hair. He swallowed. “Sir.”

“Good man. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go help myself to some more brownie.”

“Those are for everyone!”

“I’ll leave a few,” he called over his shoulder as he walked away, leaving Beth and Daryl alone. She took his plate from him and his time when their fingers brushed, he was slow to pull away.

“You don’t leave my sight.”

“I’m all over you.” Her wording made them both flush, and they stared at each other for a long moment and then split off in the opposite direction as fast as their legs could carry them.


	2. Running

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ain’t letting you out of my sight.” Something about the intensity of him, of the look, his words, made her shiver. Still, she wanted to protest. She could take care of herself. Daryl seemed to read her mind. “Know you know how to use that thing. Don’t be stupid tryin’ to prove yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this is late and Halloween is over now, but in my defense, this fic could take place in December for all anyone knows.

Beth woke up the morning of the run with the same sense of motivation she had begun her day with since she started working on the masquerade. It felt good to have a purpose again. When Judith was first born, Beth spent her days caring for her. She had become her responsibility and her constant companion, but as Rick and Carl began to heal from the loss of Lori, as the sight of Judy became less painful for them, Beth saw her less and less.

She was happy for them, really. The Grimes family had been through so much and to see to see them together, smiling, it unburdened her heart. Still, though, she missed holding her baby.

Not her baby, she reminded herself. She had no more claim on her than anyone in this prison and far less than Rick and Carl had; less even than Maggie or Glenn or Michonne, who all worked themselves to the bone every day to keep Judith safe while Beth washed dishes and made beds.

That was why joining the run crew was so important to her. She needed to have a role in protecting her family, for her own sake as much as theirs. Staring at the concrete walls of the prison wasn’t living anymore than staring into a dying fire was.

It was early still, the prison was quiet and what Beth could see of the sky was teetering just on the edge of dawn. She swung her legs over the side of her bed, stretching her arms. Beth had laid out her clothes for the run the night before, a loose fitting long-sleeve blue t-shirt, a pair of thick jeans and a men’s jacket a size or two too big for her.

None of them would do anything against a walker bite but they would protect her against the elements and the broken glass they were sure to come upon. She traded her pajamas for her new outfit, tugging on her favorite pair of socks before she slipped her boots on.

Beth looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, a reminder that she hadn’t showered that morning. Beth generally favored a morning shower over an evening one, preferring time to prepare for her day to time to decompress at the end of it.

Everyone would need a shower when they got back from the run and she figured it would be wasteful of her to shower before too, knowing she’d come back covered in walker guts. It was a small crew going out, just Daryl, Michonne, Glenn and her, so there wasn’t likely to be a run on the showers. Beth took her last hair-tie off her wrist and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Having her hair off her neck made her feel a little more human at least.

All was still quiet in the prison, but Beth knew one person would be up.

She saw Daryl almost everyday on her way to the showers in the morning. Sometimes he was outside, taking an early watch shift, sometimes he was at one of the tables in the common area but far more often than not, Daryl was the person she started her day with.

Beth spotted Daryl leaning against a table as she descended the stairs. If she hadn’t known better, it almost looked like he was waiting for her. She knew that was silly, though. Daryl probably resented her interruption every morning.

As she walked by, Daryl pushed himself off the table and moved towards her. She stopped, taken by surprise. When he was close enough to touch, Beth noticed he had something in his hands.

“Here,” he said, thrusting the thing towards her. She took the little bundle from him, taking a leap of faith in assuming it wasn’t a dead rodent, and gave it a closer look. Her breath went out of her.

It was a white handled knife in a supple brown-leather sheath, the sort of thing that might have been kept in a glass case inside of a glass case in the old world. Finely crafted, the handle had been carved with a scene in miniature, form and function. She removed the knife from its sheath, admiring it. The scene was that of a facsimile of a human form against an array of flowers. It wasn’t anything she had seen before in their weapons closet. Had he found it for her?

“Is this for me?” Daryl shrugged, hands in his pockets, and looked down. Beth stroked the sheath of the knife with her fingertips. Her smile felt, to her, like the sun. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

Daryl shrugged again. Beth wished she had the words to convey the depth of her gratitude, the kind she would pour into her diary. He looked at her from under his hair.

“Ain’t letting you out of my sight.” Something about the intensity of him, of the look, his words, made her shiver. Still, she wanted to protest. She could take care of herself. Daryl seemed to read her mind. “Know you know how to use that thing. Don’t be stupid tryin’ to prove yourself.”

He gave her air to respond. Beth thought for a moment, turning the knife in her hands. She looked away. Outside the prison, dawn was breaking. Beth nodded.

A sound like a relieved sigh went out of him. Daryl inclined his head towards the table he had been leaning against, and Beth saw two bowls filled with oatmeal. He went and sat down at the table, looking over his shoulder at her when he saw she wasn’t beside him. Beth sat down next to Daryl, watching the steam rise off their bowls as Daryl dug into his.

“How did you know when I would be up?” Beth took her spoon in hand, scooping up some oatmeal and blowing on it.

“Hear you every mornin’.” She did her best to move as quietly through the prison in the mornings as she could, but clearly her footfalls were something less than silent.

“Sorry.”

“Why?” Daryl asked, bemused. He had such a simple kindness to him, somehow straight forward and impossible to read all at once.

“I figured it annoyed you.”

“Nah.” He quirked his head. “Better you than that sister of yours, stomping to wake the dead.” The words felt like praise, like a favorable comparison. Beth smothered her smile against her palm. They spent the rest of their meal eating together in companionable silence. Almost like a date.

Beth wanted to shake the thought out of her head. More like a daydream, or a fairytale. Goldilocks and the bear.

* * *

After their breakfast, Beth and Daryl went their separate directions. Daryl departed with a nod, off to do whatever else needed to be done before the run and Beth headed towards the kitchen, two empty bowls and her new knife in hand.

Beth set the bowls in the sink, mindful to avoid the clattering sound. Excitedly, she undid her belt and slid her new knife on it. She had been waiting to do that since Daryl had gifted it to her earlier in the morning, but had fought the urge when she thought of the look he would have on his face if she started stripping off her belt out of the blue.

She left her hands fall to her sides, checking the position of the knife. Beth nudged it forward about an inch and then, satisfied, re-cinched her belt.

Beth ran water over the bowls and grabbed a sponge off the counter to scrub them clean. Dishes in the prison were always easy work, the wastefulness of the old world all but gone from their mealtimes. When she was done, Beth dried them and put them back in the cupboard.

She ran her hands under the tap and scrubbed them over her face, rubbing the last vestiges of sleep from her eyes. Beth dried her hands with the dish towel and hung it back over the hook.

Beth could hear the prison waking up all around her. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, relishing her last few moments of relative peace. Her hand drifted back to the sheath of her new knife. Beth willed herself not to read into Daryl’s gift as much as she might want to. Weapons were the new world’s gold, but they were also a necessity. He would have done the same for anyone.

 _Made sure they were armed? Of course. But there’s a difference between a crowbar and an ivory dagger._ She huffed out a breath. She was letting her own feelings color Daryl’s actions.

By the time Beth made her way into the courtyard from the kitchen, the sky was pale blue with the sun’s rays and it was day in truth.

A few Woodbury people were emptying one of the cars of a few boxes left in it from the last run. She went over to lend a hand.

“Hi, Beth!” It was Sam the canary.

“Hi, Sam.” She hadn’t known he was coming on the run with them. Beth had spent a good deal of time with him over the last few days as he helped her with some of the tasks for the party that required an extra set of hands. He talked near constantly, and while Beth appreciated the amiable chatter, she thought it was strange that he said so little about himself. She supposed she was much the same. Beth knew he was married, or had been, from the silver wedding band around his ring finger, but didn’t have the heart to ask him about it and possibly watch his grin falter. “You’re coming with us?”

“Yeah! Well, I wasn’t going to, but then Daryl came and talked to me and Sara and Ethan last night and now I’m going. We’re going.” He smiled, taking the box Beth was struggling with out of her hands.

“Daryl? What did he say?”

“It was about you, mostly.”

“Me?” Beth touched the handle of her knife.

“Yeah. He seems pretty smitten with you if you ask me.” Daryl, smitten? With her? _She_ was the one who…she refused to follow that line of thought. “He was talking about how important this run was because it’s your first time.” Beth flushed. He paused, smiling sheepishly. “Not like that. Your first run.”

“Daryl doesn’t like me. He’s just watching out for me because my Daddy asked him to.”

“You never know.” Cheeks burning, Beth shot Sam a sheepish smile. Inside the cars, Glenn and Michonne were doing last minute checks. Out of the corner of her eye, Beth spotted her Daddy slowly but surely coming towards her.

“Daddy, you should be in bed.”

“I’m a farmer through and through, Bethy. I wake with the sun, you know that.” He hugged her to him. “And I had to see you off. I’ll be here when you get back, too.”

He had accepted her presence on the run crew without protest but she knew that day would be a long one for him. It was just as nerve wracking to be the one waiting up as it was to be the one is danger. Beth and her Daddy had plenty of experience with that from sending Maggie off on runs and now it was Maggie’s turn.

When Maggie had first heard Beth was going on the run, she had insisted on going, too. She’d been belligerent, talking a mile a minute about the bond of sisters, how it was their job to protect each other. It was only after a long talk with Daddy that Beth wasn’t privy to that she’d eventually relented and issued a stern warning to Glenn about what she’d do if Beth came back with so much as a splinter.

Beth assumed the primary point of her Daddy’s argument had been her desire for independence, but she knew that alone wouldn’t have convinced Maggie. Behind her, she heard the cars roar to life as one of the double doors to the prison swung open and Daryl stepped out. Daryl’s promise to protect her must have been what swayed her.

“Got your knife?” He asked when she was within earshot. She nodded, gesturing to her hip. “Good. With me, Greene.”

Her heart stuttered. Did it count as a nickname if it was _technically_ her name? She climbed in the backseat of the car Michonne was driving after Daryl. Sam greeted them as they climbed in, turning towards them from where he was riding shotgun in the front seat. Beth waved out the window to her Daddy as Michonne pulled out of the prison gates.

“What should we keep an eye out for?” Sam asked.

Truthfully she didn’t think they would find much, if anything, to decorate for the party. It had been January when the outbreak started, and while the stores would probably have the dregs of their Christmas merchandise left, anything with a pumpkin or a witch would have been long gone at that point.

“Anything really. Candy, if you can find it. I’d like us to have as many decorations as possible. If everyone has an okay time, maybe next year we can do the same.” Beth had resolved not to shy away from wishful thinking. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, thinking of her one very specific request. She glanced over at Daryl next to her. His whole body was pressed against his door and we was staring out the window, watching the landscape speed by. “A pumpkin cookie cutter.”

“Pumpkin cookie cutter,” Michonne repeated. “Do we get a prize if we find one?”

“Beth’s eternal gratitude.” Sam said, teasing lilt underlying his words.

“Kind of a crap prize.” Michonne caught Beth’s eye in her rear-view mirror, smiling.  
  
“I bet Daryl thinks it’s a pretty good prize, right?” Beth leaned up and covered Sam’s mouth with her hand before he could continue embarrassing her.

“Does the CD player work?” Beth addressed Michonne who hit a button on the dashboard in response. The low roar of unidentifiable rock music filled the car. Beth uncovered Sam’s mouth, pinching his shoulder as she fell back against her seat. She peaked over at Daryl out of the corner of her eye and caught him looking at her, too. As soon as he saw her looking back at him, he whipped his head around to stare out the car window again as though nothing had ever happened.

Beth followed suit and stared out the car window for a few minutes, turning over his reaction in her mind. As much as she wanted to take in every possible sight beyond the prison walls, about ten minutes into the trip motion sickness began to set in from the unfamiliar feeling of being in a car. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against her seat and for the rest of the ride, tried to pick out the lyrics of the songs as they played.

Their first stop was the gas station. While Sam and Michonne stayed outside to fill up a few gas cans, Beth and Daryl made their way inside.

Though the town was far from undisturbed, it seemed whoever had been through there before they had found it had done so early on in the outbreak when no one knew how bad things would get. The gas station was picked clean of things like flashlights and matches, but there were plenty of displays that looked pristine.

“I figure we’ll grab essentials first and then make a second pass for anything that might be useful for the party.” Daryl nodded his approval of her plan and they started filling up their bags with things they needed around the prison.

Daryl kept true to his promise not to let her out of his sight. Every time Beth made a trip out with her bags of loot, Daryl was right behind her whether he had anything to put in the car or not. After their fifth load, the gas station looked decidedly more barren than it had upon their arrival.

“Let’s start looking for that cookie cutter of yours.” They had already grabbed what was left of the store’s candy stock with the essentials, so Beth focused on decorations and things for the kids.

There was a rack of shaped air fresheners next to the register with three scents. There was pine, new car and pumpkin spice. She grabbed all of the pumpkin and tree shaped ones, thinking the latter might be nice come Christmas. Then she made a beeline for the back of the store, where their clearance merchandise was.

She had spotted a few lucky finds back there as she and Daryl had passed by. There was a set of ceramic salt and pepper shakers shaped like pumpkins which, sometime between Halloween and January before the turn, had marked down from a ludicrous $60 to a slightly less ludicrous $25 and a single bag of fake spider webs. They had been her favorite thing to put up at Halloween time. Shawn used to say she put on such a thick layer of them they could just leave it up for Christmas and call it snow.

They went to the Dollar General next and repeated their pattern from the gas station, clearing out the paper towels and canned goods before moving on to party supplies.

Disposable cutlery, plates and napkins in assorted colors lined the wall to the right of the entrance and while they grabbed a handful of them for general use in the prison, Beth filled five bags with everything they had in orange, black and purple. She also squeezed streamers in the same colors in the bags with them.

After putting those in the car, she and Daryl made one last pass over the store. From the toy aisle, Beth grabbed a few packages of fake bugs and other things that fit the season, as well as some things she just thought the kids would like.

Beth started back towards the front of the store with Daryl on her tail. They happened to walk down the hair aisle as they were leaving and Beth added a few things to her bag. She grabbed a package of new hair ties for herself and then, thinking better of it, grabbed the other two off the hook. There were plenty of people who could use them and she knew from experience that elastics had a tendency to disappear on you.

While she and Daryl had been in the dollar store, the rest of the crew had been gathering their own hauls. Sam was depositing a few bags in the trunk of the car as Beth and Daryl approached with the last of their finds from Dollar General.

“I found some pretty cool stuff, but no luck on the pumpkin cookie cutter yet. I’m not giving up, though!” Sam smiled and headed back towards his store with empty bags in hand.

“He sweet on you?” The absurdity of the question caught Beth off guard.

“What?” Beth laughed. “No.”

Daryl shrugged, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“He’s always smiling at you. You’re pretty, y’ain’t got a boyfriend.” Beth felt her eyes go doe-soft.

“You think I’m pretty?”

“Beth!” Both of their heads shot up to look in the direction of the voice. Glenn yelled from down the street, waving his hands in the air.

“Loudmouth,” Daryl muttered, though Beth could tell he was grateful for the interruption based on the urgency of his steps. As they got closer to him, Beth saw why Glenn was so excited. The house at the end of the street was draped in an assortment of stranded lights. The second story windows had the numbers of the year and the new year the last time there had been anyone left to ring it in and in the front yard were weathered decorations that said ‘Happy New Year’.

“Who decorates for New Years?”

“Drunks.”

“People with too much time and money,” Michonne replied.

“Festive people, people who probably decorate for Halloween,” Beth said. Glenn nodded, smiling, and opened the front door of the house. As they piled into the entry way, the first thing they saw was a dried out tree that had been stripped of Christmas ornaments and adorned with silver and gold baubles that spelled out ‘Happy New Year’ and a mass of silver ribbon winding its way from the tree topper, a gold star, to the trunk.

Michonne cautioned them to move through the house carefully as they hadn’t made it this far down when they had cleared the area. Her words made Daryl move even closer behind Beth, until she could practically feel his breath on the back of her neck.

They headed towards the kitchen, where Daryl immediately started opening drawers. Beth hopped up on the counter to search their cupboards for anything useful. The top shelves were lined with canned vegetables, but Beth decided to wait until they were on their way out to grab them to avoid weighing down her bag.

“Can you remind me to come back through here before we leave?” When he didn’t respond, Beth rotated on the counter to face him. “Daryl?”

In his hands was a blister pack of Halloween themed cookie cutters. She slid down off the counter. There was a palpable feeling radiating off of him, a happiness. If he were a different type of man he might have been grinning. Beth rushed forward, trapping the cookie cutters and his hands between them with her hug.

“Thank you,” she whispered in his ear. Daryl exhaled, the ghost of a sigh, and freed his arms. Beth thought he might push her away, but instead her wrapped them around her, hugging her back. When they finally broke apart, he didn’t avoid her eyes.

“Bet their attic ‘s full of stuff like this,” Daryl said, handing her the cookie cutters. There was a witch’s hat, a ghost, a crescent moon and, of course, a pumpkin. Beth blinked tears away, overwhelmed.

“Let’s find Glenn and Michonne and head up there.” When they were all back together, they headed up the stairs. At the top of them was the scuttle attic, cord hanging down from one side of it.

“I’ll go up,” Daryl said.

“I don’t think you’ll fit.”

“Y’ calling me fat?”

“No, I’m calling you big.” Glenn puffed up, squaring his shoulders and widening his stance to mimic Daryl’s physique.

“I’ll go,” Beth said. She was the smallest and it was her they were looking for anyway.

“No.”

“Daryl, it’ll be fine. If there were any walkers up there, we’d have heard them by now.”

“No, told you you weren’t leaving my sight, girl, and I meant it.”

“I’ll leave my foot hanging out. You’ll keep me in your sight and you can pull me down if anything goes wrong, but I’m going up, Daryl.” His nostrils flared, but he nodded, obviously still not satisfied with the compromise.

Glenn pulled down the stairs to the attic and Beth scaled them, silently hoping. She peaked her head into the opening and saw cardboard boxes piled up all over the floor. Beth tempered her excitement. It was better than finding an empty room, but it would take a while to go through all the boxes which could have things as innocuous as old newspapers in them.

“There’s lots of boxes.

She hefted herself into the the attic, glad for the round windows that flooded it with light, and pulled the box closest to her into her arms. Beth breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that it had ‘Christmas’ scrawled along the top. She started to put the box back and then thought better of it.

“This ones got Christmas decorations,” she said, handing it to Glenn. It would add a little cheer to the prison as the harsh cold moved in. The next four boxes were marked the same, but the sixth box said Thanksgiving, which reassured Beth that the people who had lived in this house didn’t just love winter. Thinking of the people who had lived there made Beth’s heart sink. She wondered if they had gotten out together, or if they were as fragmented now as her own family, or if there were any of them left at all.

Beth continued passing the boxes to whoever stuck their hands into the attic and pretty soon she had made her way through all of the boxes within her reach. She would need to pull her leg all the way in and crawl deeper into the attic. As though he could hear her line of thought, Daryl stuck his head into the attic.

“’S plenty of room for me up here,” he said pulling himself in next to her. He called down to Glenn, “Jackass.”

“I was trying to be considerate!” Unfettered, Beth pushed through the remaining boxes until she found the first one marked Halloween. She knocked her shoulder against Daryl’s and smiled at him. He smiled back, a real smile and not just a quirk of his lips. They rooted out all of the boxes that were marked Halloween, and then surveyed what remained.

There was still an assortment of boxes left, each marked with the name of a holiday. Together, she and Daryl emptied the attic, handing down boxes for Michonne and Glenn to take out to the car one at a time. They each took one of last two boxes in the corner of the room, which happened to say ‘St. Valentine’s Day’ in red magic marker. Michonne took Beth’s box from her and loaded it into the car.

“Goin’ back in.”

“Why?” Beth drew her brows together.

“Cans in the kitchen.” She had completely forgotten about the food. What might have been a jackpot on a normal run had been completely over shadowed by what was essentially a few boxes of knick-knacks. Michonne and Glenn followed her and Daryl inside and they made quick work of clearing the cupboards.

A group of walker’s lumbered towards them as they made their way outside. They all, Beth included, dropped what they were holding and drew their weapons. Daryl moved from his place behind her to shield her from the oncoming threat, aiming his crossbow at one of their heads at the same time. Unfortunately for them, the walkers were spread out into almost a line, rather than bunched together where they were more like fish in a barrel.

While Daryl was focused on taking out as many as he could before they got too close, two walkers managed to make their way over to him, just outside of his peripheral vision. Beth steeled herself.

She dispatched the first one easily and the second with only a little trouble. After she took down the second one, she turned to make her way back to Daryl. Beth’s heart leapt to her throat as she spotted the cookie cutters Daryl had found for her laying in the dirt along with a can of green beans. Her hand shot to her backpack, feeling a rip that must have happened while she was struggling with the second walker.

Beth crouched down to pick up the cookie cutters. That was when she heard the third walker. She sprang to her feet, cookie cutters in her left hand and reached for her knife with her right, but before she could even pull it back out from its sheath, Daryl had appeared out of thin air and taken care of it.

Heaving from the kill, Daryl towered over her and Beth was sure that we was going to yell at her for her lack of awareness but instead he did something even more shocking and all the sweeter. He cradled her cheek in his filthy hand, running his thumb gently over the apex of it and asked in the softest voice imaginable,

“You good?” Beth nodded, squeezing her eyes shut. The feeling of his skin against hers had weight. “Need to hear you say it.”

“I’m good.” As the adrenaline of the moment started to fade, his fingers steepled against her cheek, feeling almost like paws. It was Beth’s quiet laughter that finally broke the moment and she mourned the loss of contact as his hand fell away.

“What’s funny?”

“I finally figured out your perfect costume.”

 


End file.
